The cheese is a simple acid/rennet/milk fresh cheese. There are many fresh cheese recipes on the web. Just look up homemade mozzarella or homemade ricotta. The difference is that ricotta has just acid, mozzarella has rennet added. For acid you can use lemon or lime juice, vinegars of various sorts, or powdered citric acid. Each results in a mildly different taste. Save the whey to use in bread.

Warm a gallon of milk to approximately 90F or a little higher. Make sure it is NOT "ultra-pasteurized" milk or it won't curdle. A gallon of milk makes about 1 1/2 pounds of cheese but the amount varies.

Add acid, in this case, the juice of 4 smallish lemons.

Dissolve 1/4 rennet tablet in 1/4 cup of water and add to the warm milk.

Stir briefly to mix and let sit 30 minutes. If the whey is still milky, add a little more acid and reheat the milk. (This batch needed a 1/4 tsp. of powdered citric acid to get it to curdle totally. It varies with the acidity of the lemons or whatever other acid you are using.)

The whey at this point should look like slightly greenish, cloudy broth. Line a collander with a non-terry dishtowel and strain the curds from the whey. Wring or press to get almost all the whey out. The more whey you get out at this point the easier it will be to turn the curds into solid cheese.

Put the mass of curds into relatively wide microwave-safe bowl. You'll need room to fold/knead the cheese in the bowl.

Stir in any desired flavorings, in this case 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, the grated zest of two lemons, and about 2 teaspoons of dried dill weed.

Microwave the cheese on high for about 1 minute then fold/knead the mixture. Reheat in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute and fold/knead some more. Repeat until the cheese firms up to about creamcheese stage. The more whey you have left in, the more often you will need to repeat this step but don't give up. It will get stiffer as it sits in the fridge.

Form into a log and wrap in parchment or waxed paper. Put in an air-tight container or wrapping until ready to eat.

The rhubarb butter is even simpler and needs much less sugar than an equivalent amount of jam or jelly. This recipe made about 2 cups, one of which is in the freezer.

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